The birth of crowdwriting?

We have entered a Brave New World in which one price cannot serve all, and sales points need to be calculated and contextually negotiated. And even beyond flexible price points, there is the possibility of ongoing “public patronage” in which the public “subscribes” to an individual artist. Surely, it is only a matter of time before sites like Gittip, which allows users to donate a minimum of 25 cents a week to members of the technorati, expand to cover authors and artists.

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What if, as Scott Turow fears, authors cannot adjust to the challenges of online distribution and piracy, leaving us with a system that rewards a writerly 1 percent of a few winners and lots of losers? One possible consequence is that idealistic, imaginative, and socially engaged members of our generation will feel compelled to make a more direct and practical impact on the world—rather than writing about social inequality, they might be “forced” to take jobs as policy-makers, for example. In fact, with the collaborative and interdisciplinary mentality behind many crowdfunded projects, such possibilities have already emerged.